"All gone," thought I; "each and every clue."

But I was mistaken. In another moment I came upon the minute filings
I had before observed scattered over a small stand. Concluding from
this that they had been passed over by Durbin and his associates as
valueless, I swept them, together with the dust in which they lay,
into an old envelope I happily found in my pocket. Then I crossed to
the mantel and made a close inspection of its now empty shelf. The
scratches which I had made there were visible enough, but the
impressions for which they stood had vanished in the handling which
everything in the house had undergone. Regarding with great
thankfulness the result of my own foresight, I made haste to leave
the room. I then proceeded to take my first steps in the ticklish
experiment by which I hoped to determine whether Uncle David had had
any share in the fatal business which had rendered the two rooms I
had just visited so memorable.

First, satisfying myself by a peep through the front drawing-room
window that he was positively at watch behind the vines, I went
directly to the kitchen, procured a chair and carried it into the
library, where I put it to a use that, to an onlooker's eye, would
have appeared very peculiar. Planting it squarely on the hearthstone,
- not without some secret perturbation as to what the results might
be to myself, - I mounted it and took down the engraving which I have
already described as hanging over this mantelpiece.

Setting it on end against one of the jambs of the fireplace, I
mounted the chair once more and carefully sifted over the high shelf
the contents of a little package which I had brought with me for this